He who could often, and alone, withstand The foe, the fire, and Jove's own partial hand, Now cannot his unmaster'd grief sustain, But yields to rage, to madness, and disdain; Then snatching out his fauchion, Thou, said he, Art mine; Ulysses lays no claim to thee. O often tried, and ever trusty sword, Now do thy last kind office to thy lord: Tis Ajax who requests thy aid, to show None but himself, himself could overthrow. He said, and with so good a will to die Did to his breast the fatal point apply, It found his heart, a way till then unknown, Where never weapon enter'd but his own: No hands could force it thence, so fix'd it stood, "Till out it rush'd, expell'd by streams of spouting
Acts, the lovely youth, whose loss I mourn, From Faunus and the nymph Symethis born, Was both his parents' pleasure; but to me Was all that love could make a lover be.
The Gods our minds in mutual bands did join : I was his only joy, and he was mine.
Now sixteen summers the sweet youth had seen;
And doubtful down began to shade his chin;
When Polyphemus first disturb'd our joy,
And loved me fiercely as I loved the boy.
Ask not which passion in my soul was higher,
My last aversion, or my first desire:
Nor this the greater was, nor that the less;
Both were alike, for both were in excess.
Thee, Venus, thee both heaven and earth obey;
Immense thy power, and boundless is thy sway.
The Cyclops, who defied th' ethereal throne,
And thought no thunder louder than his own,
The terror of the woods, and wilder far
Than wolves in plains, or bears in forests are,
Th' inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts
On mangled members of his butcher'd guests,
Yet felt the force of love, and fierce desire,
And burn'd for me with unrelenting fire:
Forgot his caverns, and his woolly care, Assumed the softness of a lover's air;
And comb'd, with teeth of rakes, his rugged hair.
Now with a crooked scythe his beard he sleeks,
And mows the stubborn stubble of his cheeks:
Now in the crystal stream he looks, to try
His simagres, and rolls his glaring eye.
His cruelty and thirst of blood are lost,
And ships securely sail along the coast.
The prophet Telemus (arrived by chance Where Etna's summits to the seas advance, Who mark'd the tracks of every bird that flew, And sure presages from their flying drew,) Foretold the Cyclops, that Ulysses' hand In his broad eye should thrust a flaming brand. The giant, with a scornful grin, replied, Vain augur, thou hast falsely prophesied ; Already Love his flaming brand has toss'd; Looking on two fair eyes, my sight I lost. Thus, warn'd in vain, with stalking pace he strode, And stamp'd the margin of the briny flood With heavy steps; and, weary, sought again The cool retirement of his gloomy den.
A promontory, sharpening by degrees, Ends in a wedge, and overlooks the seas: On either side, below, the water flows: This airy walk the giant-lover chose; Here on the midst he sate; his flocks, unled, Their shepherd follow'd, and securely fed. A pine so burly, and of length so vast, That sailing ships required it for a mast, He wielded for a staff, his steps to guide: But laid it by, his whistle while he tried. A hundred reeds, of a prodigious growth, Scarce made a pipe proportion'd to his mouth: Which when he gave it wind, the rocks around, And watery plains, the dreadful hiss resound. I heard the ruffian shepherd rudely blow, Where, in a hollow cave, I sat below; On Acis' bosom I my head reclined: And still preserve the poem in my mind. O lovely Galatea, whiter far Than falling snows, and rising lilies are; More flowery than the meads; as crystal bright; Erect as alders, and of equal height:
More wanton than a kid; more sleek thy skin 70
Than orient shells, that on the shores are seen:
Than apples fairer, when the boughs they lade;
Pleasing as winter suns, or summer shade:
More grateful to the sight than goodly plains;
And softer to the touch than down of swans,
Or curds new turn'd; and sweeter to the taste
Than swelling grapes, that to the vintage haste:
More clear than ice, or running streams, that stray
Through garden plots, but, ah! more swift than they.
Yet, Galatea, harder to be broke
Than bullocks, unreclaim'd to bear the yoke:
And far more stubborn than the knotted oak:
Like sliding streams, impossible to hold;
Like them fallacious; like their fountains, cold:
More warping than the willow, to decline
My warm embrace; more brittle than the vine;
Immoveable, and fix'd in thy disdain :
Rough as these rocks, and of a harder grain:
More violent than is the rising flood;
And the praised peacock is not half so proud:
Fierce as the fire, and sharp as thistles are;
And more outrageous than a mother-bear:
Deaf as the billows to the vows I make;
And more revengeful than a trodden snake
Yet, if you knew me well, you would not shun My love, but to my wish'd embraces run: Would languish in your turn, and court my stay; And much repent of your unwise delay.
My palace, in the living rock, is made By nature's hand; a spacious pleasing shade; Which neither heat can pierce, nor cold invade. My garden fill'd with fruits you may behold, And grapes in clusters, initating gold; Some blushing bunches of a purple hue: And these, and those, are all reserved for you. Red strawberries in shades expecting stand, Proud to be gather'd by so white a hand; Autumnal cornels latter fruit provide, And plums, to tempt you, turn their glossy side: Not those of common kinds; but such alone, As in Phæacian orchards might have grown: Nor chestnuts shall be wanting to your food, Nor garden-fruits, nor wildings of the wood; The laden boughs for you alone shall bear; And yours shall be the product of the year.
The flocks, you see, are all my own; beside 120
The rest that woods and winding valleys hide;
And those that folded in the caves abide.
Ask not the numbers of my growing store;
Who knows how many, knows he has no more.
Nor will I praise my cattle; trust not me,
But judge yourself, and pass your own decree:
Behold their swelling dugs; the sweepy weight
Of ewes, that sink beneath the milky freight;
In the warm folds their tender lambkins lie;
Apart from kids, that call with human cry.
New milk in nut-brown bowls is duly served
For daily drink; the rest for cheese reserved.
Nor are these household dainties all my store:
The fields and forests will afford us more;"
The deer, the hare, the goat, the savage boar:
All sorts of venison; and of birds the best;
A pair of turtles taken from the nest.
I walk'd the mountains, and two cubs I found,
Whose dam had left 'em on the naked ground;
So like, that no distinction could be seen;
So pretty, they were presents for a queen;
And so they shall; I took them both away;
And keep, to be companions of your play.
Oh raise, fair nymph, your beauteous face above The waves; nor scorn my presents, and my love. Come, Galatea, come, and view my face; I late beheld it in the watery glass, And found it lovelier than I fear'd it was. Survey my towering stature, and my size: Not Jove, the Jove you dream, that rules the skies, Bears such a bulk, or is so largely spread: My locks (the plenteous harvest of my head) Hang o'er my manly face; and dangling down, As with a shady grove, my shoulders crown. Nor think, because my limbs and body bear A thick-set underwood of bristling hair, My shape deform'd: what fouler sight can be Than the bald branches of a leafless tree? Foul is the steed without a flowing mane; And birds, without their feathers, and their train. 160 Wool decks the sheep; and man receives a grace From bushy limbs, and from a bearded face. My forehead with a single eye is fill'd, Round as a ball, and ample as a shield.
I make you his, in making you my own;
You I adore, and kneel to you alone:
Jove, with his fabled thunder, I despise,
And only fear the lightning of your eyes.
Frown not, fair nymph; yet I could bear to be
Disdain'd, if others were disdain'd with me.
But to repulse the Cyclops, and prefer
The love of Acis, heavens! I cannot bear.
But let the stripling please himself; nay more,
Please you, though that's the thing I most abhor;
The boy shall find, if e'er we cope in fight,
These giant limbs endued with giant might
His living bowels from his belly torn,
And scatter'd limbs, shall on the flood be borne,
Thy flood, ungrateful nymph; and fate shall find
That way for thee and Acis to be join'd.
For, oh! I burn with love, and thy disdain
Augments at once my passion and my pain.
Translated Etna flames within my heart,
And thou, inhuman, wilt not ease my smart.
Lamenting thus in vain, he rose, and strode With furious paces to the neighbouring wood: Restless his feet, distracted was his walk; Mad were his motions, and confused his talk. Mad as the vanquish'd bull, when forced to yield His lovely mistress, and forsake the field.
Thus far unseen I saw: when, fatal chance 15% His looks directing, with a sudden glance, Acis and I were to his sight betray'd; Where, nought suspecting, we securely play'd From his wide mouth a bellowing cry he cast; I see, I see! but this shall be your last. A roar so loud made Etna to rebound; And all the Cyclops labour'd in the sound. Affrighted with his monstrous voice, I fled, And in the neighbouring ocean plunged my head. Poor Acis turn'd his back, and, Help, he cried, a Help, Galatea! help, my parent gods, And take me dying to your deep abodes! The Cyclops follow'd; but he sent before A rib, which from the living rock he tore. Though but an angle reach'd him of the stone, The mighty fragment was enough alone To crush all Acis; 'twas too late to save, But what the fates allow'd to give, I gave: That Acis to his lineage should return; And roll, among the river gods, his urn. Straight issued from the stone a stream of blood; Which lost the purple, mingling with the flood. Then like a troubled torrent it appear'd: The torrent too, in little space, was clear'd. The stone was cleft, and through the yawning
New reeds arose, on the new river's brink.
The rock, from out its hollow womb, disclosed
A sound like water in its course opposed:
When (wondrous to behold) full in the flood
Up starts a youth, and navel-high he stood.
Horns from his temples rise; and either horn
Thick wreaths of reeds (his native growth) adorn.
Were not his stature taller than before,
His bulk augmented, and his beauty more,
His colour blue, for Acis he might pass:
And Acis changed into a stream he was.
But mine no more, he rolls along the plains
With rapid motion, and his name retains.
FROM THE FIFTEENTH BOOK OF
The Fourteenth Book concludes with the death and deification of Romulus; the Fifteenth begins with the election of Numa to the crown of Rome. On this occasion, Ovid, following the opinion of some authors, makes Numa the scholar of Pythagoras; and to have begun his acquaintance with that philosopher at Crotona, a town in Italy; from thence he makes a digression to the moral and natural philosophy of Pythagoras: on both which our author enlarges; and which are the most learned and beautiful parts of the Metamorphoses.
A KING is sought to guide the growing state,
One able to support the public weight,
And fill the throne where Romulus had sate.
Renown, which oft bespeaks the public voice,
Had recommended Numa to their choice:
A peaceful, pious prince; who, not content
To know the Sabine rites, his study bent
To cultivate his mind: to learn the laws
Of nature, and explore their hidden cause.
Urged by this care, his country he forsook,
And to Crotona thence his journey took.
Arrived, he first inquired the founder's name
Of this new colony, and whence he came.
Then thus a senior of the place replies,
(Well read, and curious of antiquities,)
'Tis said, Alcides hither took his way
From Spain, and drove along his conquer'd prey;
Then, leaving in the fields his grazing cows,
He sought himself some hospitable house.
Good Croton entertain'd his godlike guest;
While he repair'd his weary limbs with rest.
The hero, thence departing, bless'd the place;
And here, he said, in Time's revolving race,
A rising town shall take its name from thee.
Revolving Time fulfill'd the prophecy :
For Myscelos, the justest man on earth,
Alemon's son, at Argos had his birth:
Him Hercules, arm'd with his club of oak,
O'ershadow'd in a dream, and thus bespoke :
Go, leave thy native soil, and make abode
Where saris rolls down his rapid flood.
He said; and sleep forsook him, and the god.
Trembling he waked, and rose with anxious
heart;
Witness there needed none of his offence,
Against himself the wretch was evidence:
Condemn'd, and destitute of human aid,
To him, for whom he suffer'd, thus he pray'd:
O Power, who has deserved in heaven a throne,
Not given, but by thy labours made thy own,
Pity thy suppliant, and protect his cause,
Whom thou hast made obnoxious to the laws.
A custom was of old, and still remains,
Which life or death by suffrages ordains;
White stones and black within an urn are cast;
The first absolve, but fate is in the last.
The judges to the common urn bequeath
Their votes, and drop the sable signs of death;
The box receives all black; but pour'd from
thence
The stones came candid forth, the hue of inno
Thus Alimonides his safety won,
Preserved from death by Alcumena's son:
Then to his kinsman god his vows he pays,
And cuts with prosperous gales th' Ionian seas:
He leaves Tarentum, favour'd by the wind,
And Thurine bays, and Temises, behind;
Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that stand
Along the shore, he makes in sight of land;
Still doubling, and still coasting, till he found
The mouth of Esaris, and promised ground:
Then saw where, on the margin of the flood,
The tomb that held the bones of Croton stood :
Here, by the god's command, he built and wall'd
The place predicted; and Crotona call'd:
Thus fame, from time to time, delivers dow
The sure tradition of th' Italian town.
While he discoursed of heaven's mysterious laws,
The world's original, and nature's cause;
And what was God, and why the fleecy snows
In silence fell, and rattling winds arose;
What shook the steadfast earth, and whence
begun
The dance of planets round the radiant sun;
If thunder was the voice of angry Jove,
Or clouds, with nitre pregnant, burst above:
Of these, and things beyond the common reach,
He spoke, and charm'd his audience with his
speech.
He first the taste of flesh from tables drove, And argued well, if arguments could move. O mortals! from your fellows' blood abstain, Nor taint your bodies with a food profane: While corn and pulse by nature are bestow'd, And planted orchards bend their willing load; While labour'd gardens wholesome herbs producc. And teeming vines afford their generous juice; 10
O impious use! to Nature's laws opposed, Where bowels are in other bowels closed: Where, fatten'd by their fellows' fat, they thrive; Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live. 'Tis then for nought that mother earth provides The stores of all she shows, and all she hides, 130 If men with fleshy morsels must be fed, And chew with bloody teeth the breathing bread: What else is this but to devour our guests, And barb'rously renew Cyclopean feasts! We, by destroying life, our life sustain; And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene. Not so the golden age, who fed on fruit, Nor durst with bloody meals their mouths pollute.
Then birds in airy space might safely move,
And timorous hares on heaths securely rove:
Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear,
For all was peaceful, and that peace sincere.
Whoever was the wretch (and cursed be he)
That envied first our food's simplicity;
Th' essay of bloody feasts on brutes began,
And after forged the sword to murder man.
Had he the sharpen'd steel alone employ'd
On beasts of prey that other beasts destroy'd,
Or men invaded with their fangs and paws,
This had been justified by Nature's laws,
And self-defence: but who did feasts begin
Of flesh, he stretch'd necessity to sin.
To kill man-killers, man has lawful power,
But not th' extended licence to devour.
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
The sow, with her broad snout for rooting up
Th' entrusted seed, was judged to spoil the crop,
And intercept the sweating farmer's hope:
The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind,
Th' offender to the bloody priest resign'd:
Her hunger was no plea; for that she died.
The goat came next in order, to be tried:
The goat had cropp'd the tendrils of the vine:
In vengeance laity and clergy join,
Where one has lost his profit, one his wine.
Here was, at least, some shadow of offence:
The sheep was sacrificed on no pretence,
But meek and unresisting innocence:
A patient, useful creature, born to bear
And plough'd with pains, thy else ungrateful field!
From his yet reeking neck to draw the yoke,
(That neck with which the surly clods he broke),
And to the hatchet yield thy husbandman,
Who finish'd autumn, and the spring began! 155
Nor this alone; but, heaven itself to bribe,
We to the gods our impious acts ascribe:
First recompense with death their creatures' toil,
Then call the bless'd above to share the spoil:
The fairest victim must the powers appease:
(So fatal 'tis sometimes too much to please!)
A purple fillet his broad brows adorns,
With flowery garlands crown'd, and gilded
horns:
He hears the murderous prayer the priest prefers,
But understands not 'tis his doom he hears:
Beholds the meal betwixt his temples cast,
(The fruit and product of his labours past ;)
And in the water views, perhaps, the knife
Uplifted, to deprive him of his life;
Then, broken up alive, his entrails sees
Torn out, for priests to inspect the gods' decrees.
From whence, O mortal men! this gust of
blood
Have you derived, and interdicted food?
Be taught by me this dire delight to shun,
Warn'd by my precepts, by my practice won:
And when you eat the well-deserving beast,
Think, on the labourer of your field you feast!
Now since the god inspires me to proceed,
Be that, whate'er inspiring power, obey'd.
For I will sing of mighty mysteries,
Of truths conceal'd before from human eyes,
Dark oracles unveil, and open all the skies.
Pleased as I am to walk along the sphere
Of shining stars, and travel with the year,
To leave the heavy earth, and scale the height
Of Atlas, who supports the heavenly weight:
To look from upper light, and thence survey
Mistaken mortals wandering from the way,
And, wanting wisdom, fearful for the state
Of future things, and trembling at their fate.
Those I would teach; and by right reason
bring
To think of death, as but an idle thing.
Why thus affrighted at an empty name,
A dream of darkness, and fictitious flame?
Vain themes of wit, which but in poems pass,
And fables of a world that never was!
What feels the body when the soul expires,
By time corrupted, or consumed by fires!
Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats
In other forms, and only changes seats.
Ev'n I, who these mysterious truths declare,
Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war;
My name and lineage I remember well,
And how in fight by Sparta's king I fell.
In Argive Juno's fane I late beheld
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The warm and woolly fleece, that clothed her My buckler hung on high, and own'd my former
And daily to give down the milk she bred,
A tribute for the grass on which she fed.
Then death, so call'd, is but old matter dress'd In some new figure, and a varied vest:
Thus all things are but alter'd, nothing dies;
And here and there th' unbodied spirit flies,
By time, or force, or sickness dispossess'd,
And lodges, where it lights, in man or beast;
Or hunts without, till ready limbs it find,
And actuates those according to their kind;
From tenement to tenement is toss'd;
The soul is still the same, the figure only lost:
And as the soften'd wax new seals receives,
This face assumes, and that impression leaves;
Now call'd by one, now by another name;
The form is only changed, the wax is still the
So death, so call'd, can but the form deface, Th' immortal soul flies out in empty space, To seek her fortune in some other place.
Then let not piety be put to flight, To please the taste of glutton appetite; But suffer inmate souls secure to dwell, Lest from their seats your parents you expel; With rabid hunger feed upon your kind, Or from a beast dislodge a brother's mind.
And since, like Tiphys, parting from the shore, In ample seas I sail, and depths untried before, This let me further add, that nature knows No steadfast station, but or ebbs or flows: Ever in motion; she destroys her old, And casts new figures in another mould. Ev'n times are in perpetual flux; and run, Like rivers from their fountain, rolling on; For time, no more than streams, is at a stay: The flying hour is ever on her way; And as the fountain still supplies her store, The wave behind impels the wave before; Thus in successive course the minutes run, And urge their predecessor minutes on, Still moving, ever new: for former things Are set aside, like abdicated kings: And every moment alters what is done, And innovates some act till then unknown. Darkness, we see, emerges into light, And shining suns descend to sable night; Ev'n heaven itself receives another dye, When wearied animals in slumbers lie Of midnight ease; another, when the grey Of morn preludes the splendour of the day. The disk of Phoebus, when he climbs on high, Appears at first but as a bloodshot eye; And when his chariot downward drives to bed, His ball is with the same suffusion red; But mounted high in his meridian race All bright he shines, and with a better face : For there, pure particles of ether flow, Far from th' infection of the world below.
Nor equal light th' unequal moon adorns,
Or in her waxing or her waning horns;
For every day she wanes, her face is less,
But, gathering into globe, she fattens at increase.
Perceiv'st thou not the process of the year,
How the four seasons in four forms appear,
Resembling human life in every shape they wear?
Spring first, like infancy, shoots out her head,
With milky juice requiring to be fed:
Helpless, though fresh, and wanting to be led.
The green stem grows in stature and in size,
But only feeds with hope the farmer's eyes;
Ver. 261. In ample seas I sail, and depths untried before,] Pythagoras, it is said, wrote a poem on the universe, in hexameter verses, mentioned by Diog. Laertius, viii.7. Dr. J. WARTON,
Then Nature's hand (fermented as it was)
Moulded to shape the soft coagulated mass;
And when the little man was fully form'd,
The breathless embryo with a spirit warm'd;
But when the mother's throes begin to come,
The creature, pent within the narrow room,
Breaks his blind prison, pushing to repair
His stifled breath, and draw the living air;
Cast on the margin of the world he lies,
A helpless babe, but by instinct he cries.
He next essays to walk, but, downward press'd,
On four feet imitates his brother beast:
By slow degrees he gathers from the ground
His legs, and to the rolling chair is bound;
Then walks alone; a horseman now become,
He rides a stick, and travels round the room.
In time he vaunts among his youthful peers;
Strong-boned, and strung with nerves, in pride of
But manages his strength, and spares his age.
Heavy the third, and stiff, he sinks apace,
And, though 'tis down-hill all, but creeps along
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